Heredity in Primula Sinensis, lower part of plate VI in Mendel's Principles of Heredity, by William Bateson, 1909. William Bateson (1861-1926) was an English biologist who was the first person to use the term "genetics" to describe the study of heredity, and the chief popularizer of the ideas of Gregor Mendel following their rediscovery in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns. Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884) was an Austrian botanist and founder of genetics. Mendel carried out breeding experiments with pea plants which revealed the statistical laws of heredity. Although the significance of Mendel's work was not recognized until the turn of the 20th century, the independent rediscovery of these laws formed the foundation of the modern science of genetics.